wicks to the Northward and obliged to leave the Colony before the payments were made in July for the June Quarter.
While absent most of those very accounts which are now returned by the Auditor were rendered by the different Departments and a Quarterly Account Current was prepared from them in which the payments and receipts of Mr Stewart and of Commissary General Coffin in April and May under the authority of Sir Henry Pottinger were indiscriminately blended with Colonial and Consular payments made in the months of June and July under the authority of His Excellency Mr. Davis. No registry was kept of the Vouchers sent to England with this Account Current in July and in several instances no copies of the documents were retained.
On my return to the Colony in September I commenced an explanatory Account Current according to the form left in my Office and in which the respective payments and receipts of Mr Stewart and of Commissary General Coffin were distinctly separated and in which also no payments or receipts after the 30th day of June were included. This Account Current has been passed by the Auditor.
On the completion of this Account I commenced one for the Quarter ending 30th September but I found great difficulty in framing it because of the manner in which the different Departments had sent in their Accounts in July after drawing monies on what were called Imprest Warrants as advances from time to time without supporting Vouchers and in consequence of the Bills and Documents which had been sent to England unregistered during my absence my difficulties were increased by the long illness, frequent absence, and final withdrawal of the Chief Clerk Mr. Stephen who I found in this Office under my predecessor and who I was unwilling to deprive of his situation so long as there was any hope of his recovery and further by the illness and subsequent death of his successor Mr Craizie and by the inability to obtain an Accountant Chief Clerk at the Salary allowed to the Office. Shortly after Mr Mercer's appointment as successor to Mr Craizie the severe illness and absence from the Colony of the Colonial Secretary and of the Auditor and lack of the Councils obliged Mr Mercer to officiate in those Departments and the whole of his time was necessarily devoted to their laborious and spacious duties. My second and only remaining Clerk Mr. Collins was incessantly engaged in the daily Current business, and having ever since my arrival no person under me bound by legal obligation in pecuniary securities I was compelled to superintend every payment and receipt and to exercise the utmost vigilance with the assistance of an expert Chinese through whom the money...